MSGC Photo Highlights

Student Highlight:

Carter McIver

My name is Carter McIver, I am currently a Junior at MSU in the Mechanical Engineering program. I am originally from New York. I enjoy skiing and mountain biking in my free time. I worked this past year in the BOREALIS lab creating an instructional manual for setting up and operating the ground station. I also, worked on designing and prototyping cases for a few electronics. This summer I will continue to work on designing new parts and maintaining our system for the full solar eclipse launch.

Sylvia Nicovich

I am a PhD candidate in Geology at Montana State University, focused on Quaternary and process geomorphology, stratigraphy, and sedimentology of alluvial fans. I am working on my dissertation in the high desert of southern Colorado's San Luis Valley. My field-based research, sponsored partially through the USGS and NASA's Montana Space Grant Consortium Fellowship, will lead to a greater understanding of land forming and modifying processes, with auxiliary contribution to the improvement of hazard mitigation for applicable environments. Beyond insight to Earth surfaces processes, my research can be used as an Earth analogue for similar Martian landscapes.

Dylan Sagmiller

For my whole childhood I grew up in the small town of Ronan MT. I first attended the University of Montana after graduating high school under Pre-Engineering since I didn’t know which field I wanted to go into at the time. It was during this time one of my lab professors Jennifer Fowler introduced me to MSGC and Borealis and offered me the opportunity of working with them in the summer of 2013. I had a great time there while learning some new skills so after I transferred to MSU under Mechanical Engineering, I immediately started attending the Borealis meetings and was again give the awesome opportunity of working with Borealis in the summer of 2014. My main focus this summer is 3D printer operation, Payload Container fabrication, and constructing the new SPOT ball. Likes: Weightlifting and Gaming Dislikes: Cilantro and People that walk slow

Baleigh Doyle

I am a junior at University of Montana Western studying mathematics and business. Montana Space Grant Consortium (MSGC) opened many doors for me in my educational and professional career and provided funding for my summer 2017 internship. During the summer of 2017, I was the engineering development program evaluation data analysis intern for the Engineering Directorate at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland where I developed MATLAB functions to analyze participant response data from two in-house technical training programs. The MATLAB functions illustrated program findings using box plots, bar graphs, and heat maps in a fraction of the time required previously. Because of the speed of analysis, the evaluator was able to make program recommendations faster. This increased efficiency and allowed the developmental team to respond to the evaluator’s recommendations more quickly, often before the next training so that more of the expected outcomes could be met. At the end of my summer internship, I was offered an opportunity to continue working with my team at NASA Goddard. I would not have this opportunity without being a member of MSGC. The picture is me and my mentors from Goddard at the summer intern poster session. The far left in all black is Geraldine Robbins, the middle is Becky Derro, and the far right is Baleigh Doyle.

Trevor Clark

I am a native of Bozeman, and I love the outdoors and living here. I am married and attend school with my wife. I had the privilege to be a BOREALIS Intern. In the summer of 2010 I interned with BOREALIS and then the majority of the preceding three years I was away living in Japan. I was an exchange student for six months and then served as a missionary there for the following two years. During that time I gained valuable life experience. I learned from people of all different backgrounds and ethnicity, as well as gained fluency in Japanese. In the fall of 2013 I returned to Montana State University to continue my studies in the electrical engineering department as a junior. I reestablished my connection with BOREALIS and was very excited to intern. I love being a part of BOREALIS and am thankful for all of the opportunities to get some real engineering experience.

Al Olszewski

I am a student at Carroll College majoring in Engineering Science with minors in Physics, Math and Theatre. Space Science and Aerospace Engineering have been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. Montana Space Grant Consortium is where I found my opportunity to explore and take part in space technology. Because of my Space Science and Engineering Laboratory internship at MSU in 2014, I received multiple internship offers from companies like Lockheed Martin, Disney, and Boeing in 2015. I decided to choose a research and development internship at PROOF research where I worked on developing weapons for the military. I did things like testing thermal exhaustion and accuracy on carbon fiber wrapped barrels, I also developed a miniature data logger for competition rifles and researched long range ballistics. Without MSGC, I would not have had opportunities that were available to me in the last couple years.

Shelby Mallin

Hello everyone! My name is Shelby Mallin and I am a mechanical engineer at Montana Tech in Butte, America. I was born and raised in Lolo, MT and have always loved the outdoors and western lifestyle. I started working for MSGC back in the summer of 2014 where I met amazing people and had some great experience building an AirCore that measures carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. MSGC also funded me to attend NASA Ames Research Center for an internship this past summer where I had the opportunity to work on helicopters and fly my very own plane. I hope to continue my advancements with MSGC and my education at Montana Tech where I will be graduating this spring with honors. During my final year at Tech, I hope to find a permanent career in the aviation or aerospace industry and meeting more incredible people along the way.

Victoria Kong

My name is Victoria Kong and I am a sophomore at Carroll College. My research this summer was focused on perfecting a screen-printing technique for the metal-oxide thin films on a glass substrate used with the SHArK kit. I am working towards a Biology Major and a Combined Fine Arts Minor in both music and studio art. I was born in a suburb outside of Portland, Oregon and went to Lake Oswego High School. When I am not working on schoolwork, I like to draw and paint in my free time. In particular, I like to focus on working towards creating photorealistic drawings. I also like hiking and soaking in the sunshine—it’s even better when I can find a good place to sit and paint the scenery around me!

Daniel “Dan” Rogers

I am originally from Florida and spent 5 years in the Marine Corps which took me to California, North Carolina, Afghanistan and back. After the military I decided I wanted even more of a challenge so I decided to come to the University of Montana (GO GRIZ!) and major in physics. I am currently researching atomic physics and radio astronomy (personal research) as well as assisting with observational labs for astronomy classes and doing puplic outreach through MSGC's Space Public Outreach Team. MSGC has been a well placed stepping stone for me because it has given me a chance to present to the public about space and wonders it holds. I'd have to say my best experience so far as a SPOT presenter was getting the chance to present for two nights in Yellowstone National Park to not only Montana residents, but to people around the world. My future goals are always up in the air, but I would like to head to grad school and study particle and atomic physics or do work with lasers, but I have plenty of time to think about it.